


See This Brightness

by ohmymongoose



Category: Cloud Atlas - All Media Types, London Spy
Genre: London Spy/Cloud Atlas crossover, M/M, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5782210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmymongoose/pseuds/ohmymongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex is not coping well with his life in America.  In an attempt to find a hobby, he finds Robert Frobisher's letters to Rufus Sixsmith</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm shit at summaries and this has not been beta'd, so please be gentle.

Alex is not adjusting well to life in Virginia, so he falls back on what he knows—routine. He runs each morning—very pointedly avoiding bridges—and eats breakfast at a café around the corner from his office. He completes his assignments, often staying well into the night to complete them. At least then he can collapse into a fit of exhaustion and get a few hours sleep before the nightmares wake him. 

He begs to be given projects to work on at home, but his superiors don’t’ allow sensitive documents out of the building. That, and he isn’t yet sure if they trust him. They should, though, given what they’re holding over his head. 

Since he cannot work, Alex tries other options. First he tries sudoku books—expert level, of course—and then code-cracking games on his computer, but he solves them too quickly for them to be an adequate distraction. Instead, he runs more and more until he finds himself losing weight. 

When he drops fifteen pounds, his colleagues start commenting. It all sounds innocent enough, but he is hyperaware of the fact that he is employed by the CIA, where no question is ever innocent. He acknowledges that it is time to find a new distraction. 

He tries reading and finds that very few novels appeal to him. The plots are typically grounded in outlandish events that could never happen—and he does mentally calculate the probability—or things that he has no interest. When he does find one that holds his interest, the emotional aspect is at times both too distant and too close to enjoy. 

He has more success in history texts. They deal in concrete facts that he can file away and pull out later as necessary. The number of people who use common dates as a basis for encryption is startling. Alex reads about events relevant to him and his new place of residence, starting with the American Revolution. He quickly covers the major wars and events to present day and even stoops to buying a general overview—American History for Dummies—to get a broader picture. 

The mentions of Alexander Hamilton and his life are interesting, so Alex branches into biographies. He reads about major historical figures from Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan to Churchill and both Roosevelts. He does well until he picks up the memoir of a World War II prisoner of war at the bookseller’s recommendation. It sends him into the most vivid nightmares he has had yet. 

This is when his reading veers into subjects where running across casual mentions of torture is more than rare. Music is essentially aural mathematics and Alex finds the biographies of composers to be highly enjoyable. He reads his way through the greats like Beethoven and Schubert before he finds his reading taking a slightly more contemporary turn. 

Vyvyan Ayrs was a composer from the early twentieth century. His most productive period was in his early life and well into middle age when he contracted syphilis. He had a resurgence in his older years working with an amanuensis. His deathbed quotes on music could make even the most closed-off person feel some sort of interest in the subject. Classical music had always been Alex’s preferred listening--though now he finds himself listening to other, very specific types--and found himself enjoying much of Ayrs’ work when he looked it up. His later work was far superior to his early pieces. A footnote provided the name of the amanuensis. Robert Frobisher.

The name sits heavy in his mind long after he finishes the biography and the music. It feels familiar and heavy on his tongue when he says it aloud in a moment of foolishness. Perhaps he had come across it when he was younger .

The nagging doesn’t subside, which is how he finds himself sitting in a Library of Congress reading room—after making the appropriate appointment, of course—looking at the nearly century-old correspondence of Robert Frobisher. There was very little information available about the composer’s life aside from his education (Caius, never finished), family background (disowned by his father, brother killed in World War I), and musical accomplishments (one Cloud Atlas Sextet). He died young. 

Alex has never been one to fixate on smells, but the smell of the creased, yellow letters feels comforting. He sits stiffly in the chair as he begins to read the first letter.

_Sixsmith,_

_I do hope you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me. Hated leaving you like that. Wasn’t the goodbye I had in mind. By the time you read this, I will be on my way on Edinburgh. On my way to fame and fortune. I know you haven’t heard of him, but Vyvyan Ayrs in one of the musical greats, Sixsmith. The tragedy is that he hasn’t produced any new work in years due to illness. My scheme is to persuade him to hire me as his amanuensis and aide him in the creation of a masterpiece and go shooting up through the musical firmament, eventually obliging Pater to admit that, yes, the son he disinherited is none other than Robert Frobisher, the greatest, British composer of his time._

The letter is obviously not a professional letter, evidenced by both the personal issues discussed and the familiarity in the way the writer addresses Sixsmith. A friend, perhaps?

_I know, Sixsmith, you groan and shake your head, but you smile too, which is why I love you._

_Sincerely,_

_R.F._

_P.S. Thanks for the waistcoat. I needed something of yours to keep me company._

So not friends, then. Or rather, not only friends. Clothes sharing was hardly common amongst men in 1931. It was hardly common amongst male friends today. Danny had been his only friend—his only anything, ever—so he really had very little to go on. 

But he does remember Danny pulling on one of his shirts when walking quietly into the kitchen to brew the tea. He had liked the way his shirt looked on his lover—

—and he’s struck by the memory of being in an old hotel room watching a rumpled young man with a head of tousled dark hair pulling a waistcoat onto his shoulders and buttoning it haphazardly. He turns and there’s a mischievous smile on Danny’s face—

He finds himself too disturbed to continue. Before he leaves, he makes another appointment to visit Frobisher’s letters. It’s unsettling, the need to finish reading the letters and the feeling that he’s already done so. 

***

Danny has stopped counting how many days since he and Frances were resigned to not getting justice for Alex. The months have come and gone in a haze of grief and pills and pacing Scottie’s house. The winter is so bleak and grey and Danny finds himself nearly certain that he is locked inside a mausoleum, the garden a cemetery. It may as well be. 

He rarely leaves the house and only does so to retrieve food. Cartons of takeaway pile up in the kitchen until there are no surfaces left to put anything. He is finally forced into cleaning and taking the bins out for pickup. 

When spring comes, he finds himself startled by the green grass and blooming of the flowers. It hurts to see the rest of the world moving on when he cannot. But it is also the spring that finally convinces him to move on with his life—or at least to try. It has been well over a year since Alex’s death when he comes to the frank realization that if something doesn’t change he will be joining his lover in six the welcoming arms of Mother Earth. 

Claire’s words come to mind. He has rarely thought of his own formal education since he left school; it wasn’t an issue until Alex came along, and even then it didn’t matter until after his death. But Danny knows he can’t spend the rest of his life living off of Scottie’s money and he certainly doesn’t intend to finish out his life working in the warehouse. 

He hasn’t the foggiest idea what he wants to study, but there must be something out there that could make him happy. His lack of formal education has never been due to lack of curiosity. He starts by checking out courses of study on the university website. He makes a visit to speak with Claire, who seems to be under the impression that he would take a path similar to Alex and study maths or coding or some such. Instead he finds himself drawn to the arts—writing in particular. 

Danny takes all the require courses, but he excels at creative writing. There’s not heart in business writing—composing carefully worded letters or memos for a company with no soul has very little appeal for him—but putting a story to paper is a thrill. He loves it and, even better, he’s good at it. 

The years required for his degree fly by in a sea of papers and assignments, but he finds that he is surprisingly content. He can’t bring himself to try dating, despite Sara and Pavel’s attempts to set him up with friends, but he is settled in his life. His things have slowly started to take over Scottie’s house and it no longer feels quite like the mausoleum it was before. But contentedness is not the same as joy. 

For his final class, Danny is given an assignment that he has never attempted before—an epistolary. It’s a genre he has avoided until now; the thought of writing letters to loved ones is still too tender, even with the passing of the years. But even the strongest demons must be exorcised. 

The other students in his class—all bright young things that play at adulthood, who haven’t yet discovered that cynicism does not equal maturity—have working drafts long before he does. Their drafts for class have all manner of exhanges in them, everything from e-mails and text messages to quick notes jotted and left on the counter for flatmates. Danny decides on good, old-fashioned letters.  
He’s not read much actual correspondence outside of the required reading for his classes, so he sets out to do research. The librarian calmly asks him what he’s looking for. 

“Letters. Um…personal letters. Maybe from a maths person, if you’ve got any.”

She arches an eyebrow in interest, but gestures for him to follow her. They’ve got a whole room of letters, she informs him. 

“Mostly they’re from literary figures, but we have films from many mathematicians. Or perhaps you want to see actual letters, in which case we’ve got less selection. We recently acquired letters from a physicist, Dr. Rufus Sixsmith. Most of his work was done in America, but his early education was at Caius…”

The name stirs something in Danny’s mind. “Rufus Sixsmith,” he whispers, testing the name on his tongue. It feels strangely familiar. 

“Those will—the Sixsmith letters will be good.”

After he settles himself in a reading room, the librarian brings out the letters. They’re yellowed with age but the words are still clear. 

_Dear Robert,_

_I hope you don’t mind me using your Christian name, but I can’t in good conscience call you Frobisher any longer, especially after hearing the hotelier say it so petulantly. I would be lying if I said that seeing you scramble down a drainpipe weren’t the most amusing part of my day. Still sad to see you go._

_I would tell you about my research, but I know you would only skip those pages so I won’t waste the ink. As for your father, I am certain that you should not waste your ink on him. Anger at him will only poison your music—not that I would notice, for I am a musical dunce after all. I hope that Edinburgh and Vyvyan Ayrs brings you everything you wish for._

_Yours,_

_R.S._

_PS-Keep the waistcoat. You wear it well._

It is personal correspondence, true, but even friends didn’t refer to one another by their Christian names—not in writing, anyway. Or maybe he only thinks that because he had always envisioned the 1930’s being men sitting around in clubs, smoking cigars and clapping each other on the back while calling each other by their surnames. Either way, it gives him the feeling that there was more than friendship between Sixsmith and Robert, whoever that was. 

Perhaps he is overthinking it, but Danny knows that there is power in giving something a name. He remembers the way Alex had said his name, whispering it lovingly after they had made love—

—and then he is struck by the image of a man in bed, naked save for the rumpled sheets around his waist. He’s smiling affectionately and the smile is so familiar—

He reads several more letters, trying to shake the feeling that he already knows them, before going back to the librarian. 

“Excuse me, do you know who he was writing to in these letters?” Danny asks.

“They were to Robert Frobisher. They were passed down in the Frobisher family until a distant relative recently donated them.”

Robert Frobisher. Danny keeps the name tucked away in his head for later. For now, he will continue exploring Rufus Sixsmith.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed Frobisher's narration from the film and spliced it together with his letters from the film because I can't include 50-odd pages of letters, no matter how snarky and wonderfully written. So the Frobisher we have here is a melding of movie!Frobs and snarky book!Frobs. 
> 
> All errors are mine, please forgive me. I know not what I do.

When Alex next comes to the Library of Congress to visit the Robert Frobisher letters, he has had a chance to do further research—all very general and done on a computer at a public library. The letters of Robert Frobisher had been donated to the Library of Congress in 2010 after the death of Megan Sixsmith, niece of Dr. Rufus Sixsmith. A brief Google search revealed that he had attended Caius College and done doctoral studies there at the same time Robert Frobisher had attended. Dr. Sixsmith had never married or been publicly linked to anyone in a romantic fashion.

He and Frobisher had been lovers, of this Alex is certain. 

Typically he didn’t follow his hunches—there was no concrete evidence, and he knew better than to trust his feelings—but he was nearly certain of it. In the letters, he would find his proof.

Before returning to the library, he had requested that scans be made of the letters. The librarian had given him a sideways glance and asked for ID, explaining that this was not typically how things were done for the general public. He’d given her a polite but strained smile along with his ID. Perhaps his new identity had come up with a CIA warning. Or perhaps she just took pity on him—after all, how many people voluntarily spend time in reading rooms with beautiful weather outside—but she had them ready when he next visited. 

_Sixsmith,_

_All praise Rufus the Blessed, Patron Saint of Needy Composers, Praise in the Highest, Amen. Your postal order arrived safe and sound this morning—I painted you to my hosts as a doting uncle who’d forgotten my birthday. Mrs. Ayers confirms the bank will cash it. Will write a motet in your honor and pay your money back as soon as I can. Might be sooner than you expect._

_Cause for minor celebration. Ayrs and I completed our first collaboration, a short tone poem, “Der Todtenvogel.” When I unearthed the piece, it was a tame arrangement of an old Teutonic anthem. Our new version is an intriguing animal. Is it not miraculous how one’s fortune can turn so quickly, so completely? One moment leaping out a hotel window to being golden boy of the house. Best news of all: started composing on my own account again._

_Sincerely,_

_R.F._

_PS-I came across a curious dismembered volume, and I want you to track down a complete copy for me. It begins on the ninety-ninth page, its covers are gone, its binding unstitched. It’s the edited journal of a voyage from Sydney to California by a notary named Adam Ewing. To my great annoyance, the pages cease, midsentence, some forty pages later, where the binding has worn through. Find it for me? A half-read book is, after, all half-finished love affair._

If Alex had read these letters—and that line—two years ago, he never would have believed it. He wouldn’t have known what a half-finished love affair felt like. But now he feels it most acutely. He knows the pain of the what ifs, of the mistakes made and apologies never spoken or heard. He knows the beautiful ache of love and what it is to lose it too soon. 

It is too painful to contemplate thoroughly in a public library, so Alex makes a note to look up Adam Ewing’s travel journal. There is a very fair chance that it is out of print, but it might be worth a shot. He did manage to find the letters written by an obscure composer with only one great work to his name. 

Determined to continue on, he picks up another letter. 

_Sixsmith,_

_Summer has taken a sensuous turn: Ayrs’ wife and I are lovers. Don’t alarm yourself! Only in the carnal sense. Don’t wish to brag, but her visit didn’t take me by surprise. In fact, I’d left the door ajar for you. Really, Sixsmith, you should try to enjoy lovemaking in total silence. All that ballyhooing transmutes into bliss if you’ll only seal your lips…_

His chest feels strangely tight at the thought of Frobisher in bed with someone else. It feels wrong to be writing to one lover about another, even if the woman was only his lover in the carnal sense. He wonders if that is what Danny thinks of their relationship now. MI-6 had conveniently made him disappear after Danny’s confession of his previous relationship with drugs and sex. Is that what Danny thinks?

One of his deepest fears is learning that they had only been lovers in the carnal sense. 

The sense of despair only deepens as he continues reading about near-misses in the bedroom and the wife’s jealousy at Frobisher’s creative relationship with her husband.

_…Ayrs left. I locked the door and climbed in bed for the third time that night. Bedroom farce, when it actually happens, is intensely sad. Jocasta seemed angry with me._

_“What?” I hissed._

_“My husband loves you,” said the wife, dressing._

Alex isn’t supposed to be picking up the letters, but he doesn’t notice that he’s done it until it is trembling in his hand. Setting it down on the foam block, he wonders what Sixsmith must have thought when reading his lover’s misadventures? Did he fear that Frobisher wouldn’t return to him? Or did they have an understanding—

—Yes, of course they had an understanding, he thought as he sat on a bench outside his lab in Essex. But that didn’t lessen the pain of seeing the words printed on the page. Robert had always had passing infatuations, but he always returns. Still, he can’t stop the fear of Robert finding another musician, a creative who understands him better than a physicist ever could—

Alex runs a hand through his hair, trying to chase away the odd feelings that come with his strange dream of sitting on a park bench with the letter. The dream had followed him home from the reading room and now wakes him nightly with involuntary tears streaming down his face. 

For days, he ruminates on it. Has Danny found someone new? Another lover—someone who can actually be a partner, who won’t lie to him, who won’t naïvely create a device that endangers his life? Danny shone too brightly to be alone. Surely he has someone to share his life with. The thought brings more tears—selfish tears, he berates himself—but he smiles at the thought, too. 

In comparison to the days of discovery at the Library of Congress—and now in his local library after finishing his work projects—his work feels flat and dull. It all pales in comparison to the feeling of discovery that comes with reading the letters. He pushes himself to find out more, joining an online music forum that discusses only the work and life of Robert Frobisher. He reads what others type, but never comments himself. Still, it sometimes gives him new information that he didn’t have before.

He finds himself living for those moments—not unlike the eight months in London when seeing Danny was ever-present in his mind. All else becomes boring. 

Then he remembers very well the consequences of that feeling.

So Alex forces himself to work carefully and efficiently, taking any assignment they give him without complaint. Anything to keep them happy. 

But it doesn’t stop him from coming home at the end of a project—be it the end of the night or morning—and pulling out his copies of the letters to read. He can’t bring himself to finish them—not yet—but he rereads them for any detail he may have missed. He doesn’t want to look too closely at his obsession. He doesn’t want to question too much the way it makes him feel or the way that he sometimes dreams of beautiful music and a mischievous pianist with Danny’s face.

***

Danny sits in front of his computer at the heavy oak desk and cannot make the words come. His assignment deadline is looming and still he cannot make the words come. He glances up the poster that Sara bought him, but the words feel mocking.

**There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.  
-Ernest Hemingway**

His research with the Sixsmith letters was both a blessing and a curse. The letters let him into the mind of someone who was both analytical and ethical. Most major scientific journals and newspapers hailed his final report—published by Luisa Rey in Spyglass magazine—for saving hundreds of thousands of lives. According to most people, he had been a brilliant man.

Danny found that he was also clearly besotted with Robert.

A bit of asking the librarian—and perhaps a bit of charm thrown in for good measure—made it easy enough to track down the Robert of the letters. They had been donated by the Frobisher family. It took barely a quick Google search to reveal that Robert Frobisher was the most likely recipient. It also took little sense to realize that Sixsmith had been ardently in love with him. 

_Robert,  
Do forgive the ballyhooing. I had no idea it upset you so—particularly since you seem determined to be the cause of it on multiple occasions each time you are here. I will make sure to be sullen and taciturn during our next visit. However, I am a forgetful man, so be sure to remind me. _

_It has been surprisingly pleasant here, even when I venture outside the lab. I have no doubt that you could write the flight of the birds or the beauty of the trees into a sonata worthy of the greatest British composer of our time, but the stars would truly inspire you. Though I suppose they have stars in Edinburgh too._

_Yours,_

_R.S._

_PS-Be sure to look at the stars every now and again and think of my ballyhooing. That is, assuming you can escape Mrs. Ayrs’ carnal clutches._

For a man of science, Rufus Sixsmith had loved most passionately, of that Danny was sure. He only hoped that Robert Frobisher had returned his affections. But then, how could one not, when faced with a charming, playful letter like that? He only wished that he could know the response, that he could know for sure that Sixsmith’s love had been returned.

When asked about the corresponding letters, the librarian had sadly informed him that the Library of Congress in America had originals. The university had not acquired digital scans. 

So naturally, he turned to the internet. He discovered quickly that there were forums for almost everything—HIV support groups, pet loss support groups, support groups for people who had lost loved ones. There also happened to be plenty of people—music students and professors, mostly—willing to talk about Robert Frobisher. 

Comments ranged from “he is a musical genius” to “he must have taken advantage of Ayrs and stolen the work.” There are plenty of people with scans of his correspondence with his professors and copies of his schoolwork, but none who have more than a passing knowledge of the Sixsmith letters. Too few people were interested in his personal life.

There is a long thread dedicated to discussing Frobisher’s most famous work, the Cloud Atlas Sextet. Danny looked it up, but its initial release was limited. Thankfully, there are people who have no scruples about taking old records and uploading them illegally to the internet. 

When he listens to it in the quiet of Scottie’s study, it takes his breath away. His heart hammers in his chest and his blood sings in his veins at its beauty. Each line takes a moment, rising and falling as lives and empires and emotions do. At the climax of the piece he finds himself humming along, more than certain of where the music is going. It is hurtling towards its conclusion and he is filled with both a sense of peace and dread. It is brilliant and touching.

And familiar. 

Perhaps it had been used in a movie or television show, he suggests. But no, it had never been used in film or television. In fact, it was hardly even discussed in musical literature. Apparently the Robert Frobisher fan club is quite an exclusive one, though every member seems to be resourceful. 

This is how he gets the idea to ask if anyone has scans of Robert Frobisher’s personal letters to Rufus Sixsmith. The need to read them grows like an ever-present itch that cannot be satisfied. He waits for several hours but gets no response, so he goes to bed.

He dreams of ink on his fingers as they dance over a piano. There is staff paper scattered over the piano and floor around him. The music he makes is beautiful and hums through his body, but it doesn’t chase away the melancholy sense of separation or the remembrance of a fond smile on a handsome face.

When he wakes, Danny wipes the tears from his face and makes his way to the computer. He rests his fingers on the keyboard, closes his eyes, and bleeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at ohmymongoose.tumblr.com. Come say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr. Come say hi!
> 
> ohmymongoose.tumblr.com


End file.
